Here’s a trivia question for cutting fans. What competitor holds the NCHA Non-Pro Derby record score?

It’s Bucki James, 47, Purcell, OK, who rode her homebred gelding Rambo Merada to score 225.5 points, as champion of the 2002 NCHA Non-Pro Derby. James, an NCHA Non-Pro Hall of Fame inductee (2005), began riding cutting horses in 1992 and has been a top contender ever since.

“I love the people in cutting,” said James, who came from a racing and western pleasure background. “I love the sport. I love the teamwork involved. It’s a real wholesome event.”

This year’s NCHA Summer Spectacular and Derby, which begins on July 14 in Fort Worth, will be the first that James has missed in more than a decade. She is currently surrounded by family and friends in an Oklahoma City hospital, “weighing her options” in a struggle with cancer. Her niece, Amanda, has set up a website where well-wishers can send Bucki messages and learn about her daily progress.

“God has blessed me with wonderful horses,” James told me, after she won the 2003 NCHA Classic Challenge Non-Pro on Sonita Lena Chick. “That is the truth of the matter. You do have to do the work and it is hard for me. But you could put the same hard work into average horses and not be able to do it. So much of it depends on special horses.”

James won five major events with Sonita Lena Chick, including the 2003 Augusta Futurity Classic, where she also placed third on Starched Wranglers, who like Rambo Merada, was bred by James out of Merada Missy. Riding Sonita Lena Chick and the two gelded brothers, James won or placed no less than third in 21 major limited age events.

James has consigned Chick Makes Money, a 5-year-old gelding out of Sonita Lena Chick that she rode as a finalist in the 2006 NCHA Non-Pro Futurity, to the NCHA Summer Spectacular Sale on Friday, August 1, the weekend of the NCHA Derby finals at Will Rogers Equestrian Center.

To contact Bucki and/or her family, go to: http://www.fourbucki.blogspot.com/